United States v. Edwar Rodriguez ( 2022 )


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  • USCA11 Case: 20-14681     Date Filed: 05/12/2022   Page: 1 of 28
    [PUBLISH]
    In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Eleventh Circuit
    ____________________
    No. 20-14681
    ____________________
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
    Plaintiff-Appellee,
    versus
    EDWAR RODRIGUEZ,
    a.k.a. Domi,
    a.k.a. Brooklyn,
    Defendant-Appellant.
    ____________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Middle District of Florida
    D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cr-00030-CEH-TGW-1
    ____________________
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    2                      Opinion of the Court               20-14681
    Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
    MARCUS, Circuit Judge:
    Edwar Rodriguez played several distinct roles in a large-
    scale methamphetamine drug trafficking conspiracy operating out
    of the Tampa Bay, Florida area. In this appeal, he disputes various
    building blocks of his 135-month prison sentence imposed by the
    district court. His primary challenge involves the trial court’s de-
    termination that he was responsible for distributing 200 kilograms
    of methamphetamine. He also makes three other arguments on
    appeal -- concerning his sentencing enhancement for possessing a
    firearm, the district court’s decision not to grant him a downward
    variance or downward departure, and the overall reasonableness
    of his sentence. After thorough review, we affirm the judgment of
    the district court.
    I.
    The essential facts drawn from the Presentence Investiga-
    tion Report (“PSI”) and an extended sentencing hearing held by the
    district court are these. From around January 1, 2018 through April
    23, 2019, Edwar Rodriguez (“Rodriguez”) participated in a variety
    of ways in a drug trafficking organization that procured cocaine
    and hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine from a Mexican
    drug cartel and distributed these drugs in Spring Hill, Florida. Co-
    conspirators Juan Carlos Arias Castillo (“Castillo”) and Adan Bara-
    jas Maldonado (“Maldonado”) led the organization from a stash
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022    Page: 3 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                       3
    house in Spring Hill, where authorities later found 13.38 kilograms
    of liquid methamphetamine, 380.2 grams of powdered metham-
    phetamine, 145.1 grams of cocaine, one gram of heroin, two pis-
    tols, and ammunition.
    Rodriguez principally served as an “errand runner” for the
    principals of the conspiracy. In this capacity, Rodriguez occasion-
    ally transported methamphetamine (imported from Mexico) by car
    from Texas all the way back to the conspirators’ stash house in
    Florida. Rodriguez also distributed drugs to the organization’s cus-
    tomers in the Spring Hill area -- a task that included delivering
    multi-kilogram quantities of methamphetamine to a local metham-
    phetamine distributor on a weekly basis. Some of the time, Rodri-
    guez distributed methamphetamine to the organization’s custom-
    ers by working in tandem with Christian Santiago-Rondon and Vic-
    tor Santiago-Rondon (collectively, “the Santiago-Rondon broth-
    ers”), two others who also acted as errand runners for the conspir-
    acy. On other occasions, Rodriguez served as Castillo’s driver,
    chauffeuring Castillo as he personally distributed methampheta-
    mine to customers in the same area. In addition to transporting
    and distributing drugs, Rodriguez regularly wired funds from Cas-
    tillo and Maldonado to cartel contacts in Mexico. Occasionally,
    Rodriguez was tasked with recruiting individuals who were not af-
    filiated with the conspiracy to send money wires, in an attempt to
    conceal these transactions from law enforcement. Castillo or Mal-
    donado typically paid Rodriguez around $200 each time he com-
    pleted his myriad tasks in Florida. He was also paid somewhere
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022      Page: 4 of 28
    4                       Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    between $3,500 and $4,000 for transporting methamphetamine
    from Texas to Florida.
    In 2020, a federal grand jury sitting in the Middle District of
    Florida charged Rodriguez and five others with one count of con-
    spiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute fifty
    grams or more of methamphetamine, as well as mixtures and sub-
    stances containing detectable amounts of both cocaine and heroin,
    all in violation of 
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (b)(1)(A)(viii) and (b)(1)(C) and 
    21 U.S.C. § 846
    . The government claimed that Rodriguez and his co-
    conspirators were responsible for delivering more than 200 kilo-
    grams of methamphetamine to their customers. Rodriguez’s of-
    fense carried a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years of im-
    prisonment and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (b)(1)(A)(viii).
    Rodriguez ultimately elected to plead guilty without the
    benefit of a written plea agreement, but disputed various state-
    ments contained in the PSI. In accord with the magistrate judge’s
    recommendation, the district court accepted Rodriguez’s guilty
    plea on September 18, 2020.
    Relevant here, one of the facts Rodriguez disputed in the PSI
    was the assertion that Rodriguez had sold Castillo a pistol that was
    ultimately recovered from the stash house. Additionally, Rodri-
    guez claimed that, for sentencing purposes, he should be held re-
    sponsible only for 15 to 45 kilograms of methamphetamine, object-
    ing to the PSI’s recommendation that he be held accountable for
    the 200 kilograms attributed to the entire conspiracy. Rodriguez
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    20-14681                Opinion of the Court                          5
    also argued that he should not receive a sentencing enhancement
    for possessing weapons, under § 2D1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing
    Guidelines, because he did not sell a firearm to Castillo; that he
    should receive a downward departure under § 4A1.3 of the U.S.
    Sentencing Guidelines, because his criminal history overrepre-
    sented the seriousness of his prior crimes; and that he deserved a
    downward variance from the applicable U.S. Sentencing Guide-
    lines range, “based on his personal history and the specific offense
    characteristics,” including his “excellent work history” and his on-
    going support of his son and his girlfriend’s two other children.
    The PSI calculated a total offense level of thirty-nine under
    §§ 2D1.1(a)(5) and 2D1.1(c)(1) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines,
    based on the quantities of methamphetamine for which Rodriguez
    was held responsible, Castillo’s possession of a firearm, Rodriguez’s
    lack of a mitigating role, and, cutting in the other direction, his ac-
    ceptance of responsibility. The PSI placed Rodriguez in criminal
    history category III on account of his prior convictions for aggra-
    vated assault and possession of marijuana. Coupled with his pro-
    jected total offense level of thirty-nine, this resulted in a Guidelines
    sentencing range of 324 to 405 months.
    After taking sworn testimony from Rodriguez and hearing
    argument from counsel, the district court found that Rodriguez
    had been engaged in a jointly undertaken criminal activity, “as op-
    posed to a number of separate criminal activities,” with Castillo,
    Maldonado, and other co-conspirators. The court added, “looking
    at the conspiracy as a jointly undertaken criminal activity, it’s clear
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 6 of 28
    6                      Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    that the [c]ourt should consider the actions of others in the conspir-
    acy unless the [d]efendant is no longer a part of the conspiracy.”
    Consistent with these statements, the court overruled several of
    Rodriguez’s objections to the PSI. Among other things, the court
    rejected Rodriguez’s objection to the attribution of 200 kilograms
    of methamphetamine to him. The trial court also overruled his
    objection to the firearm enhancement, finding that, while the gov-
    ernment had not proven that Rodriguez sold a pistol to Castillo,
    Rodriguez was a part of the conspiracy at the time of the search of
    the stash house from whence the firearm was retrieved, and that
    Castillo’s possession of a pistol was foreseeable.
    The court then ruled in Rodriguez’s favor on several other
    issues. For one thing, it found that Rodriguez was entitled to a
    sentence reduction in light of his minor role. The court observed
    that, based on Rodriguez’s testimony, he was “just a mule with re-
    gard to this drug trafficking organization,” and “conspirators who
    were higher up” in the organization “told him what to do.” Rodri-
    guez argued that, in light of the district court’s finding that he
    played a minor role, a sentencing enhancement for the importation
    of methamphetamine was not viable. The district court agreed
    with him on this issue as well.
    Rodriguez was left with an offense level of thirty-one.
    When coupled with a criminal history category of III, this yielded
    a Sentencing Guidelines range of 135 to 168 months, a supervised
    release range of two to five years, and a fine range of $30,000 to $10
    million. The district court denied Rodriguez’s request for a
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    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                         7
    variance and sentenced him to 135 months’ imprisonment -- a sen-
    tence at the bottom of the Guidelines range -- followed by three
    years of supervised release and a $100 special assessment but no
    fine.
    This timely appeal followed.
    II.
    We review a district court’s findings of fact at sentencing,
    including the quantity of drugs that are attributable to a defendant,
    for clear error. United States v. Westry, 
    524 F.3d 1198
    , 1218 (11th
    Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Reeves, 
    742 F.3d 487
    , 506 (11th
    Cir. 2014). Under this deferential standard, we will reverse for clear
    error only when we are “left with a definite and firm conviction
    that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Almedina,
    
    686 F.3d 1312
    , 1315 (11th Cir. 2012) (citation and quotation marks
    omitted). When a challenge to the veracity of the facts in a PSI is
    brought by a defendant, the burden of proving those facts by a pre-
    ponderance of the evidence lies with the government. United
    States v. Lawrence, 
    47 F.3d 1559
    , 1566 (11th Cir. 1995).
    While a district court “does not have unfettered discretion”
    in setting a sentence, the reasonableness of a final sentence is re-
    viewed only for abuse of discretion. United States v. Williams, 
    526 F.3d 1312
    , 1321–22 (11th Cir. 2008); see also Gall v. United States,
    
    552 U.S. 38
    , 51 (2007) (explaining that we review both the proce-
    dural and substantive reasonableness of a criminal sentence for
    abuse of discretion). A district court abuses its discretion when it
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 8 of 28
    8                      Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    (1) fails to afford consideration to relevant factors that were due
    significant weight, (2) gives significant weight to an improper or ir-
    relevant factor, or (3) commits a clear error of judgment in consid-
    ering the proper factors. United States v. Pugh, 
    515 F.3d 1179
    , 1192
    (11th Cir. 2008). Normally, however, the “weight” that a district
    court gives to “any given § 3553(a) factor is a matter committed to
    the sound discretion of the district court.” Williams, 
    526 F.3d at 1322
     (quotation marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Clay, 
    483 F.3d 739
    , 743 (11th Cir. 2007)).
    III.
    A.
    First and foremost, Rodriguez claims that the district court
    erred in attributing 200 kilograms of methamphetamine -- the total
    quantity of methamphetamine attributed to the conspiracy -- to
    him for sentencing purposes. We are unpersuaded.
    We note, at the outset, that Rodriguez does not dispute the
    district court’s determination that he was still a member of the con-
    spiracy at the time of his arrest. To the extent Rodriguez claims
    that he “‘quit’ working for the conspiracy before the search warrant
    was executed,” so “he should only be accountable for the drugs he
    actually delivered,” this brief statement does not sufficiently chal-
    lenge the district court’s finding concerning the nature and extent
    of his membership in the conspiracy. As we’ve said many times,
    an appellant abandons an issue when he makes only a “passing ref-
    erence” to it in his opening brief, as Rodriguez did here. Sapuppo
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 9 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                         9
    v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 
    739 F.3d 678
    , 681 (11th Cir. 2014)
    (quotation marks omitted). Regardless, in order to sustain a legally
    cognizable withdrawal from a conspiracy, a defendant must “tak[e]
    steps inconsistent with the conspiracy and communicat[e] these
    acts in a manner reasonably calculated to reach the coconspirators,
    or disclos[e] the illegal activity to law enforcement authorities.”
    United States v. Butler, 
    41 F.3d 1435
    , 1446 (11th Cir. 1995). Simply
    being unavailable to perform a job for Castillo on the day the stash
    house was searched is neither the functional equivalent of thwart-
    ing or exposing the purposes of the conspiracy, or of explicitly in-
    forming the co-conspirators of his withdrawal.
    We also conclude, as a preliminary matter, that the district
    court did not err in attributing 200 kilograms of methamphetamine
    to the drug trafficking organization as a whole. Under our case
    law, the government meets its burden of establishing the relevant
    drug quantity by a preponderance of the evidence by convincing
    “the trier of fact . . . that the existence of a fact is more probable
    than its nonexistence.” United States v. Trainor, 
    376 F.3d 1325
    ,
    1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (quoting Concrete Pipe & Prods. of Cal., Inc.
    v. Constr. Laborers Pension Trust for So. Cal., 
    508 U.S. 602
    , 622
    (1993)). In making this showing, the government must present “re-
    liable and specific evidence.” Lawrence, 
    47 F.3d at 1566
    . When “a
    fact pattern gives rise to two reasonable and different construc-
    tions, ‘the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erro-
    neous.’” Almedina, 686 F.3d at 1315 (quoting United States v.
    Izquierdo, 
    448 F.3d 1269
    , 1278 (11th Cir. 2006)).
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681      Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 10 of 28
    10                     Opinion of the Court                20-14681
    Here, the total drug quantity attributed to a conspiracy that
    ran from around January 1, 2018 through April 23, 2019 was based
    upon: (1) a co-conspirator’s delivery of roughly thirteen kilograms
    of liquid methamphetamine seized on the day the government
    searched the stash house; and (2) a ledger recovered in that search,
    which showed that the conspiracy had distributed approximately
    190 kilograms of methamphetamine throughout a six- to seven-
    week period during the course of the fifteen-month conspiracy.
    Rodriguez argues vaguely that the 200-kilogram “amount was
    based on mere speculation and not facts.” However, Rodriguez
    offers no evidence to suggest that the district court was unreason-
    able, let alone that it clearly erred in finding, based on these two
    reliable, specific sources of evidence, that the conspiracy had
    moved at least 200 kilograms of methamphetamine. See Reeves,
    742 F.3d at 506–07 (upholding a district court’s finding of a total
    quantity of drugs when this finding was solely based on a co-con-
    spirator’s testimony about how many drugs he had sold the defend-
    ant). Quite simply, there is no basis on this record for us to find
    that the total quantity determination reflected any clear error.
    We turn then to Rodriguez’s main claim -- that the district
    court committed clear error in attributing the full 200 kilograms of
    methamphetamine to him for sentencing purposes. In United
    States v. Ismond, we addressed how to assign a drug quantity for
    sentencing purposes to a member of a drug conspiracy like this one.
    
    993 F.2d 1498
    , 1499 (11th Cir. 1993).
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 11 of 28
    20-14681                Opinion of the Court                        11
    We explained that “in the case of a jointly undertaken crim-
    inal activity (a criminal plan, scheme, endeavor, or enterprise un-
    dertaken by the defendant in concert with others, whether or not
    charged as a conspiracy),” see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) (emphasis
    added), “a member of a drug conspiracy is liable for his own acts
    and the acts of others in furtherance of the activity that the defend-
    ant agreed to undertake and that are reasonably foreseeable in con-
    nection with that activity.” Ismond, 
    993 F.2d at 1499
    . Thus, in
    order to ascertain whether a defendant should be held liable for the
    drug quantities handled by his co-conspirators, a district court must
    make findings about: (1) the overall scope of the drug-related en-
    terprise; (2) a particular defendant’s individualized role in relation
    to the overall scope of the enterprise; and (3) the quantity of drugs
    that would be reasonably foreseeable to a defendant in light of his
    role in the enterprise. See 
    id.
    In assessing the scope of the conspiratorial enterprise, a dis-
    trict “court may consider any explicit agreement or implicit agree-
    ment fairly inferred from the conduct of the defendant and others.”
    See App. Notes 2, 3(B) to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. And, importantly, a
    district court’s failure to make individualized findings regarding a
    defendant’s scope of criminal activity does not necessarily warrant
    a remand; in that event, “the sentence may nevertheless be upheld
    if the record supports the amount of drugs attributed to a defend-
    ant.” Ismond, 
    993 F.2d at 1499
     (emphasis added). Here, the record
    amply supports the district court’s attribution of 200 kilograms of
    methamphetamine to defendant Rodriguez.
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022      Page: 12 of 28
    12                      Opinion of the Court                   20-14681
    Looking first at the scope of the conspiracy, the PSI estab-
    lished that the drug conspiracy was a large importation/distribu-
    tion enterprise, in which runners would regularly drive drugs --
    mostly methamphetamine, along with some cocaine -- across the
    border from Mexico to Texas, then to a stash house in Spring Hill,
    Florida; then distribute drugs from the stash house to the Spring
    Hill customers; and, finally, wire money back to drug cartels in
    Mexico. Notably, Rodriguez does not dispute the veracity of any
    of these facts. See United States v. Hedges, 
    175 F.3d 1312
    , 1315
    (11th Cir. 1999) (permitting a district court to rely on statements
    from the PSI that are “undisputed”). We, therefore, accept the
    manner in which the district court framed the scope of the conspir-
    acy. See United States v. Wade, 
    458 F.3d 1273
    , 1277 (11th Cir. 2006)
    (citations omitted) (“It is the law of this circuit that a failure to ob-
    ject to allegations of fact in a PSI admits those facts for sentencing
    purposes. It is also established law that the failure to object to a
    district court’s factual findings precludes the argument that there
    was error in them.”).
    As for the second step -- the defendant’s individualized role
    in relation to the conspiracy’s overall scope -- the district court ex-
    pressly found that the entire conspiracy could be classified as “a
    jointly undertaken criminal activity” akin to one described in the
    U.S. Sentencing Guidelines’ commentary. In this example:
    Defendants T, U, V, and W are hired by a supplier to
    backpack a quantity of marihuana across the border
    from Mexico into the United States. Defendants T, U,
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022    Page: 13 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                       13
    V, and W receive their individual shipments from the
    supplier at the same time and coordinate their impor-
    tation efforts by walking across the border together
    for mutual assistance and protection. Each defendant
    is accountable for the aggregate quantity of mari-
    huana transported by the four defendants. The four
    defendants engaged in a jointly undertaken criminal
    activity, the object of which was the importation of
    the four backpacks containing marihuana (subsection
    (a)(1)(B)), and aided and abetted each other’s actions
    (subsection (a)(1)(A)) in carrying out the jointly un-
    dertaken criminal activity (which under subsection
    (a)(1)(B) were also in furtherance of, and reasonably
    foreseeable in connection with, the criminal activity).
    App. Note 4(C)(viii) to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3.
    Likening Rodriguez’s conspiracy to the “example in the
    guidelines with [d]efendants T, U, V and W,” the district court em-
    phasized that the co-defendants here “worked jointly,” and that
    “this case is one that’s viewed more as a jointly undertaken crimi-
    nal activity as opposed to a number of separate criminal activities.”
    The court added that “Mr. Rodriguez at times was even in the ve-
    hicle with Castillo or Maldonado or maybe even worked with
    the . . . Santiago Rondon brothers,” who were other runners in the
    conspiracy.
    The record -- as we’ve laid it out -- fully supports these find-
    ings by the district court.        First, Rodriguez transported
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    14                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    methamphetamine from the Texas-Mexican border all the way
    back to the stash house in Florida. Second, he distributed metham-
    phetamine to the organization’s Florida customers based on orders
    he received from Castillo. Third, he occasionally partnered with
    the Santiago-Rondon brothers to distribute methamphetamine to
    customers. Fourth, he drove Castillo on multiple errands when
    Castillo distributed methamphetamine to his customers. Fifth, Ro-
    driguez was the primary distributor of methamphetamine to Don-
    ald Shaffer, another distributor who received multi-kilogram quan-
    tities of methamphetamine from Rodriguez on a weekly basis. Fi-
    nally, Rodriguez received payments for wiring funds from the con-
    spirators to their cartel contacts in Mexico. In short, the record re-
    flects that Rodriguez acted jointly with his co-conspirators by par-
    ticipating in the conspiracy in six distinct ways, five of which in-
    volved directly transporting controlled substances.
    Because Rodriguez worked extensively in partnership with
    other members of this elaborate drug conspiracy, he properly was
    held responsible for his co-conspirators’ actions. Indeed, this is not
    a case where a district court, without support in the record, loosely
    assigned the total quantity of drugs or funds handled by a conspir-
    acy to each individual defendant, or evenly divided an estimated
    total quantity across several different defendants. See, e.g., United
    States v. Hansley, 
    54 F.3d 709
    , 714 (11th Cir. 1995); United States
    v. Hunter, 
    323 F.3d 1314
    , 1321–22 (11th Cir. 2003).
    Instead, this case more closely resembles those circum-
    stances where we’ve upheld a district court’s deliberate decision to
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022      Page: 15 of 28
    20-14681                Opinion of the Court                          15
    attribute a conspiracy’s full quantity of drugs to a defendant. Thus,
    for instance, in United States v. Matthews, we upheld the trial
    court’s sentencing decisions when the government provided spe-
    cific evidence about each defendant’s respective role in a drug dis-
    tribution conspiracy and attributed a quantity of cocaine distrib-
    uted by a co-conspirator to the defendant on account of the defend-
    ant’s large role in the conspiracy. 
    168 F.3d 1234
    , 1248 (11th Cir.
    1999). And in United States v. Mertilus, we affirmed a district
    court’s decision to hold a defendant liable for a quantity of cocaine
    that he “aided” in selling because he had “participated” in the two
    sales, even though they were carried out by other co-conspirators.
    
    111 F.3d 870
    , 873 (11th Cir. 1997).
    Here, as in those cases, Rodriguez’s involvement was not
    limited to a single discrete act or a single discrete phase of this elab-
    orate conspiracy. Rodriguez’s multiple drives to the Texas border
    and to customers within Florida -- and in particular his pattern of
    directly driving Castillo to customers’ homes -- clearly illuminate
    the role he played in aiding Castillo in the distribution of metham-
    phetamine.
    Finally, the third step of our inquiry asks whether the actions
    of Rodriguez’s co-conspirators were reasonably foreseeable, and,
    therefore, whether the quantity of drugs they distributed should be
    attributable to him. To begin with, the district court’s attribution
    of 200 kilograms of methamphetamine to the drug trafficking or-
    ganization was supported by two reliable, specific sources of evi-
    dence we’ve discussed: thirteen kilograms of methamphetamine
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 16 of 28
    16                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    that were seized in the search of the stash house, and the other 190
    kilograms or so that were recorded in a ledger found in the stash
    house. And if anything, the record suggests that this quantity de-
    termination is a major underestimate. The drug ledger in the stash
    house covered only a seven-week period, whereas the conspiracy
    lasted for some fifteen months.
    Rodriguez argues, nevertheless, that the district court’s de-
    termination that he played a “minor role” in the conspiracy implies
    or compels the conclusion that he could not be held responsible for
    the full 200 kilograms of methamphetamine. However, as Rodri-
    guez’s counsel conceded at oral argument, those two determina-
    tions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. A participant in a con-
    spiracy may be “substantially less culpable than the average partic-
    ipant in the criminal activity,” a necessary requirement for a finding
    of a minor role, see United States v. Cruickshank, 
    837 F.3d 1182
    ,
    1194 (11th Cir. 2016) (emphasis added) (citation and quotation
    marks omitted), while also still being sufficiently involved in the
    conspiracy’s scope to be considered a joint participant who may be
    held culpable for the full quantity of drugs attributed to a conspir-
    acy. Here, the record supports both determinations.
    As for the reasonable foreseeability finding prescribed by Is-
    mond, the district court commented that:
    [A]ll acts and omissions of others that were within the
    scope of the jointly undertaken criminal activity in
    furtherance of that criminal activity and reasonably
    foreseeable in connection with that criminal activity
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 17 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                        17
    can also be considered and attributed to Mr. Rodri-
    guez[.]
    See Ismond, 993 F.3d at 1499; see also Butler, 
    41 F.3d at 1443
    (“[T]he Guidelines require a district court to attribute to a defend-
    ant all drugs foreseeably distributed pursuant to a common scheme
    of which that defendant’s offense of conviction was a part.”). And
    ultimately, the district court found that Rodriguez was responsible
    for the 200-kilogram amount, expressly overruling Rodriguez’s
    “objection to being held accountable for more than 200 kilograms
    of methamphetamine.”
    The district court’s findings are, once again, well supported.
    The record we’ve detailed reveals Rodriguez’s months-long partic-
    ipation in a scheme to distribute methamphetamine to various cus-
    tomers, where he directly collaborated with the other co-conspira-
    tors on a regular basis. On this record, we are not “left with a def-
    inite and firm conviction” that the district court clearly erred in
    concluding that Rodriguez reasonably could have foreseen the dis-
    tribution of 200 kilograms of methamphetamine by his organiza-
    tion. See United States v. Rothenberg, 
    610 F.3d 621
    , 624 (11th Cir.
    2010) (quotation marks omitted). Indeed, “[w]here a fact pattern
    gives rise to two reasonable and different constructions, ‘the fact-
    finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.’”
    Almedina, 686 F.3d at 1315 (quoting Izquierdo, 
    448 F.3d at 1278
    ).
    One final comment: The district court did not recite each
    aspect of Rodriguez’s testimony that supported its findings as to
    the scope of the conspiracy and Rodriguez’s role in it, nor did it add
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 18 of 28
    18                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    as many details to its findings as it could have. Nevertheless, we
    are satisfied that it would be too formalistic to require the district
    court to do so in this case, where the court made its decisions based
    on an extensive evidentiary record and a sentencing hearing at
    which Rodriguez testified at length about his wide-ranging partici-
    pation in the conspiracy. The district court recognized as much,
    saying this:
    I’ve considered the argument of your Counsel, his
    sentencing memorandum, your testimony and your
    statement, the letters in support that the [c]ourt re-
    ceived and reviewed on your behalf, argument of
    Counsel for the Government, and it’s taken us a long
    time to get there, two hours almost with regard to
    this, but the [c]ourt has certainly considered adequate
    information from which to impose a sentence in this
    case given your role in this conspiracy.
    And as we’ve explained at some length, the record provided
    more than adequate support for each of the findings necessary for
    the court to hold Rodriguez liable for the drug quantities handled
    by the conspiracy. This approach is, after all, consistent with Is-
    mond’s assurance that a “sentence may nevertheless be upheld if
    the record supports the amount of drugs attributed to a defendant.”
    See 
    993 F.2d at 1499
    . Like the district court, we cannot ignore the
    extensive evidence of Rodriguez’s role in this conspiracy, nor can
    we say that the district court’s findings concerning Rodriguez’s role
    were clearly erroneous. Thus, we affirm the district court’s
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 19 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                        19
    decision to attribute 200 kilograms of methamphetamine to Rodri-
    guez for sentencing purposes.
    B.
    Similarly, we are unconvinced by Rodriguez’s challenge to
    a sentencing enhancement for possessing a firearm. As we see it,
    the district court was justified in enhancing Rodriguez’s sentence
    on the grounds that his co-conspirator Castillo had stored a firearm
    at the stash house.
    In United States v. Gallo, we explained that a defendant may
    receive a sentencing enhancement for possession of a firearm by a
    co-conspirator if:
    (1) the possessor of the firearm was a co-conspirator,
    (2) the possession was in furtherance of the conspir-
    acy, (3) the defendant was a member of the conspir-
    acy at the time of possession, and (4) the co-conspira-
    tor[’s] possession was reasonably foreseeable by the
    defendant.
    
    195 F.3d 1278
    , 1284 (11th Cir. 1999) (emphasis in original). While
    the district court’s imposition of a sentencing enhancement is re-
    viewed deferentially for clear error, the government still must es-
    tablish the necessary facts “by a preponderance of the evidence.”
    
    Id.
     However, “[o]nce the government shows that a firearm is pre-
    sent at the site of the charged conduct, the evidentiary burden shifts
    to the defendant to show that a connection between the firearm
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 20 of 28
    20                      Opinion of the Court                 20-14681
    and the offense is clearly improbable.” Westry¸ 
    524 F.3d at 1221
    (citations and quotation marks omitted).
    In his brief, Rodriguez cites the four-part Gallo standard, and
    concedes that “[i]t is quite clear that the government has proven
    the first three elements,” but argues that the government did not
    establish that Rodriguez “knew or could foresee that one of his co-
    conspirators had a weapon[.]” However, during the sentencing
    hearing, Rodriguez effectively admitted that it was reasonably fore-
    seeable that Castillo could possess a firearm. In response to the
    government’s questions, Rodriguez agreed that (1) he knew he was
    a participant in the distribution of illegal drugs, (2) the drug trade
    was dangerous, and (3) “pretty much everybody involved in the
    drug business carries a firearm or has one accessible.” Further,
    when explicitly asked whether he “could foresee it that Mr. Castillo
    might want a firearm handy in case somebody would try to rob
    him,” Rodriguez answered, “I could see that, yes, correct.”
    Rodriguez’s statements about reasonable foreseeability are
    especially strong admissions in light of his participation in a large-
    scale drug distribution conspiracy that spanned an extensive
    timeframe and covered a large geographic area bounded by the
    Texas-Mexican border and central Florida. See United States v.
    Pham, 
    463 F.3d 1239
    , 1246 (11th Cir. 2006) (explaining that it is
    “reasonably foreseeable that a co-conspirator would possess a fire-
    arm where the conspiracy involved trafficking in lucrative and ille-
    gal drugs”). Finally, Rodriguez failed to mention, much less meet,
    his burden of showing that the “connection between the firearm”
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022    Page: 21 of 28
    20-14681                Opinion of the Court                     21
    found at the stash house “and the offense is clearly improbable.”
    See Westry, 
    524 F.3d at 1221
     (quotation marks omitted).
    In short, we can discern no reason to find that the district
    court committed any mistake, let alone clearly erred in attaching a
    two-level enhancement to Rodriguez’s sentence.
    C.
    As for Rodriguez’s argument that the district court errone-
    ously failed to grant him a downward departure from the Guide-
    lines sentence, the government correctly points out that we lack
    jurisdiction to consider this element of Rodriguez’s appeal.
    Section 4A1.3 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines provides
    that:
    If reliable information indicates that the defendant’s
    criminal history category substantially over-repre-
    sents the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal his-
    tory or the likelihood that the defendant will commit
    other crimes, a downward departure may be war-
    ranted.
    U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3(b)(1). On appeal, Rodriguez argues that the dis-
    trict court erred in rejecting his “argument that he was entitled to
    a downward departure due to his criminal history being over-rep-
    resented due to the charges against him.” He points out that his
    criminal history score was based in part on a charge that he in-
    curred at the age of nineteen, which was over twelve years ago.
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022      Page: 22 of 28
    22                      Opinion of the Court                  20-14681
    However, the problem for Rodriguez is that the district
    court’s decision to grant a defendant a downward departure is com-
    mitted to the court’s discretion, and we generally lack jurisdiction
    to review district courts’ discretionary decisions in this area. In
    United States v. Dudley, for example, we addressed a criminal de-
    fendant’s argument that the district court had erroneously denied
    his motion for a downward departure due to his HIV status. 
    463 F.3d 1221
    , 1228 (11th Cir. 2006). In so doing, we emphasized our
    clear rule that “[w]e lack jurisdiction to review a district court’s de-
    cision to deny a downward departure unless the district court in-
    correctly believed that it lacked authority to grant the departure.”
    
    Id.
     (emphasis added) (citing United States v. Winingear, 
    422 F.3d 1241
    , 1245 (11th Cir. 2005)). We have reiterated this rule many
    times. See, e.g., United States v. Norris, 
    452 F.3d 1275
    , 1282 (11th
    Cir. 2006); United States v. Patterson, 
    15 F.3d 169
    , 171 (11th Cir.
    1994).
    The exception to the rule -- that we have jurisdiction when
    a district court believes it lacked authority to grant a downward
    departure -- is a narrow one. So, in invoking the exception, we
    maintain a presumption in the district court’s favor. Dudley, 
    463 F.3d at 1228
    . We do not require a district court to expressly say
    whether it believes it has the authority to grant a departure; in-
    stead, “when nothing in the record indicates otherwise, we assume
    the sentencing court understood it had authority to depart down-
    ward.” United States v. Chase, 
    174 F.3d 1193
    , 1195 (11th Cir. 1999).
    In other words, we lack the power to review this decision when the
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022     Page: 23 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                        23
    court does “not express any ambivalence regarding its authority to
    depart and the evidence does not otherwise reflect the district court
    misapprehended its authority.” Id.; cf. United States v. Webb, 
    139 F.3d 1390
    , 1395 (11th Cir. 1998) (vacating and remanding on a
    downward departure issue solely to enable the district court to ex-
    ercise its discretion over whether to grant a departure, since, dur-
    ing the sentencing hearing, “the court appears to have agreed with
    [ ] the proposition that it lacked the authority to depart” from the
    Guideline sentence).
    Applying our clear-cut rule to this case, we can find no basis
    to conclude that the sentencing judge incorrectly understood her
    discretion to grant a downward departure. The judge’s statement
    at sentencing that she “considered the argument of [defense] Coun-
    sel, his sentencing memorandum,” Rodriguez’s testimony, “the let-
    ters in support that the Court received and reviewed on [Rodri-
    guez’s] behalf, [and] argument of Counsel for the Government” in-
    dicates a thorough decision-making process and does not reflect
    any misunderstanding about her discretion under the Sentencing
    Guidelines. And Rodriguez has not pointed to any evidence sug-
    gesting otherwise.
    Accordingly, we do not consider Rodriguez’s arguments on
    this issue.
    D.
    Lastly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its
    discretion by assigning Rodriguez a substantively unreasonable
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681        Date Filed: 05/12/2022      Page: 24 of 28
    24                      Opinion of the Court                  20-14681
    sentence. Nor, moreover, did the district court abuse its discretion
    by declining to grant his request for a downward variance.
    A sentence may be substantively unreasonable “if it is
    grounded solely on one factor, relies on impermissible factors, ig-
    nores relevant factors” in the sentencing context, or balances the
    relevant factors in an unreasonable manner. Pugh, 
    515 F.3d at 1194
    ; see also United States v. Irey, 
    612 F.3d 1160
    , 1189 (11th Cir.
    2010) (en banc). However, “it is only the rare sentence that will be
    substantively unreasonable.” United States v. McQueen, 
    727 F.3d 1144
    , 1156 (11th Cir. 2013). Procedural unreasonableness may be
    evident when “the district court improperly calculates the guide-
    line range, treats the guidelines as mandatory, fails to consider the
    appropriate statutory factors, bases the sentence on clearly errone-
    ous facts, or fails to adequately explain its reasoning.” Williams, 
    526 F.3d at 1322
    .
    In reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness, we
    must take into account “the totality of the circumstances, including
    the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range,” giving due
    deference to the district court’s consideration of the sentencing fac-
    tors enumerated in 
    18 U.S.C. § 3553
    (a). Gall, 
    552 U.S. at 51
    . How-
    ever, in its “consideration of the § 3553(a) factors, the district court
    does not need to discuss or state each factor explicitly.” United
    States v. Gonzalez, 
    550 F.3d 1319
    , 1324 (11th Cir. 2008). These are
    the § 3553(a) factors:
    (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and
    the history and characteristics of the defendant;
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681      Date Filed: 05/12/2022    Page: 25 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                     25
    (2) the need for the sentence imposed (A) to reflect
    the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for
    the law, and to provide just punishment for the of-
    fense; (B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal
    conduct; (C) to protect the public from further crimes
    of the defendant; and (D) to provide the defendant
    with needed educational or vocational training, med-
    ical care, or other correctional treatment in the most
    efficient manner; (3) the kinds of sentences available;
    (4) the kinds of sentence and the sentencing range [as
    set forth in the Sentencing Guidelines] . . . ; (5) any
    pertinent policy statement . . . issued by the Sentenc-
    ing Commission . . . . ; (6) the need to avoid unwar-
    ranted sentence disparities among defendants with
    similar records who have been found guilty of similar
    conduct; and (7) the need to provide restitution to
    any victims of the offense.
    
    18 U.S.C. § 3553
    (a).
    We consider whether the sentence as a whole is reasonable,
    rather than applying “the reasonableness standard to each individ-
    ual decision made during the sentencing process.” United States v.
    Campbell, 
    491 F.3d 1306
    , 1313 (11th Cir. 2007) (emphasis added)
    (quoting Winingear, 
    422 F.3d at 1245
    ). Further, “the burden of es-
    tablishing that the sentence is unreasonable in light of the record
    and the § 3553(a) factors lies with the party challenging the sen-
    tence.” Williams, 
    526 F.3d at 1322
     (emphasis added).
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681            Date Filed: 05/12/2022          Page: 26 of 28
    26                         Opinion of the Court                        20-14681
    In objecting to the substantive reasonableness of his sen-
    tence and the district court’s decision not to impose a downward
    variance, 1 Rodriguez begins by making several vague arguments
    that are unsupported by the record. He claims that the district
    court erred by not properly considering the § 3553(a) factors,
    “fail[ing] to balance said factors so as to assure that a just and rea-
    sonable sentence was entered,” and basing his sentence on “‘imper-
    missible factors’, i.e., the District Court’s knowledge and disdain
    for the conspiracy itself.” Rodriguez also offers the judgment that
    his “sentence did not promote the administration of justice nor
    law” and “did not provide just punishment[.]” However, Rodri-
    guez does not cite any specific portions of the record that support
    any of these claims about unreasonableness, and he does not ex-
    plain how the district court should have assigned weight in a differ-
    ent way to the § 3553(a) factors in calculating his sentence.
    Rodriguez’s more specific objections to the substantive rea-
    sonableness of his sentence can essentially be grouped into four cat-
    egories: (1) Rodriguez was a minor participant in the drug conspir-
    acy; (2) he assisted the government and accepted responsibility;
    (3) he received a greater sentence than similarly situated co-
    1 Although Rodriguez raises the district court’s denial of his request for a vari-
    ance as a separate issue on appeal, this issue is more appropriately analyzed
    within the context of the reasonableness of his overall sentence. See Gall, 
    552 U.S. at 51
     (considering “the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range”
    in the process of assessing reasonableness); Irey, 
    612 F.3d at 1186
     (same).
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681       Date Filed: 05/12/2022    Page: 27 of 28
    20-14681               Opinion of the Court                       27
    conspirators; and (4) on a personal level, he has a positive history
    of working in lawful jobs and supporting his family.
    These arguments also fall flat. First, Rodriguez overlooks
    that he already received sentencing reductions for having played a
    minor role in the drug enterprise and for having accepted respon-
    sibility. Next, Rodriguez’s claim that he was assigned a higher sen-
    tence than the other co-conspirators is not in itself evidence of an
    unwarranted sentencing disparity. A variety of factors specific to
    individual defendants -- such as the defendants’ criminal history,
    their personal characteristics, and the degree of their assistance to
    the government -- contributes toward their sentences, and Rodri-
    guez provides no evidence that these factors were equivalent for
    himself and his co-defendants. On the contrary, as the government
    points out, the Santiago-Rondon brothers had lower criminal his-
    tory categories of I, a salient fact that Rodriguez does not dispute.
    Nor does Rodriguez cite any precedent for the idea that a district
    court must reduce a defendant’s sentence because of a record of
    gainful employment or strong familial ties. Moreover, as we’ve
    said many times, the weight given to any of the § 3553(a) factors is
    committed to the sound discretion of the district court. United
    States v. Croteau, 
    819 F.3d 1293
    , 1309 (11th Cir. 2016). Under the
    deferential review standard we apply to the district court’s sen-
    tence, we see no basis to second-guess its reasoned decisions about
    how to apply each specific § 3553(a) factor in this case.
    Overall, Rodriguez has failed to show that his 135-month
    sentence was substantively unreasonable. Indeed, the fact that his
    USCA11 Case: 20-14681         Date Filed: 05/12/2022       Page: 28 of 28
    28                       Opinion of the Court                    20-14681
    sentence is at the bottom end of the Guidelines range, and is well
    below the statutory maximum penalty of a life sentence, lends fur-
    ther support to the conclusion that it is reasonable. See Gonzalez,
    
    550 F.3d at 1324
     (noting that the defendant’s sentence is situated
    “well below the maximum ten-year sentence” that accompanies his
    offense as one factor pointing toward reasonableness). 2
    AFFIRMED.
    2 Although Rodriguez says that his sentence was “procedurally” unreasonable
    in both his opening and reply briefs on appeal, he does not provide us with
    any evidence of procedural error in the sentencing process. Accordingly, he
    has abandoned the argument on appeal. Sapuppo, 739 F.3d at 681.